Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Message-Id: <199509220723.DAA17191@wilma.cs.utk.edu>
To: drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Subject: UA reply commands
cc: moore@CS.UTK.EDU
From: Keith Moore <moore@CS.UTK.EDU>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 03:22:59 -0400
Sender: moore@CS.UTK.EDU

(from the floor)

Most of the various header munging behaviors by lists seem to be
directed toward getting a recipient to "do the right thing" when
generating a reply.  The "right thing" isn't the same in every case,
but it is sometimes possible to say that the "right thing" is nearly
always X for a particular list.  (where X is either "reply to author
only" or "reply to list only".)

On the other hand, sometimes this isn't really the right thing to do.
The list doesn't know difference and mungs the headers anyway, thus
reducing the chance that the "right thing" will be done in that
particular case.

I don't think there's any substitute for intelligence on the part of
the recipient in choosing the set of reply recipients.

So while I don't want us to define too much UA behavior in 822bis, I'm
sympathetic to the idea that UAs should encourage recipients to make
an explicit decision about which of several addresses to send a reply
to, when replying to a message with multiple recipients.  (With so
many styles of user interface, exactly how the UA should encourage
them is difficult to specify, but maybe we could supply some
examples.)

(Even better would be for newsreaders to encourage explicit choice of
followups for an article posted to multiple newsgroups.)

Keith